Lois Weber, one of the most discerning directors of the silent-film era, centers this light-toned but dark-themed melodrama of small-town life, from 1921, on the strained finances of intellectuals. Professor Griggs (Philip Hubbard) can’t feed his family on his salary, despite the contributions of his daughter, Amelia (Claire Windsor), who works at the local library. One of the professor’s frivolous, high-society, country-club students, Phil West (Louis Calhern), is attracted to Amelia; he feigns an interest in books to spend time at her desk and shows up at her home as a suitor. Mrs. Griggs (Margaret McWade) dreams that Amelia will marry the wealthy Phil, but the man Amelia loves, the local minister, is as poor as her father. Meanwhile, with Amelia literally starving, Mrs. Griggs is tempted to crime by the overflowing cupboards of their prosperous next-door neighbors, the Olsens. Weber films this pain-seared drama with a meticulous eye for the telling detail—worn-out shoes, torn carpet, tatty furniture—and for the nuances of social observation and concealments on which pride and shame depend. As the drama builds to frenzied heights, Weber brings it to a shatteringly rapid conclusion.